Gaila: Fifty Shades of Red
by Spockchick
Summary: She's a stranger in a strange land, but she'll get by with a little help from her friends. Our redhead in fifty drabbles about the colour red. Prompt from the lovely TeaOli.
1. 1 & 2

**1. Cranberry**

'Phhhhhtooo!'

That was the sound of Gaila spitting a small ovoid berry into the sink.

"Aaagh! Yek! You humans are weird. That's the most disgusting thing I ever tasted. I might be poisoned." She rubbed her tongue on the back of her hand, screwing up her eyes. "What do you eat that for? It's worse than Denebian slime-devil eggs. I'm dying!"

"Gaila, don't be such a drama queen, you're not supposed to eat them raw, I have to cook them, and nobody eats Denebian slime-devil eggs." Her room mate prodded Gaila with the handle of a wooden spoon.

"Do too! I ate them on survival training."

Uhura plucked the colander of drained berries from the counter and tipped its contents into a pan. "They need sugar, and cinnamon, and orange juice, and some cloves. I like a little chilli-heat in mine."

"Humph!" Gaila folded her arms beneath her breasts and peered into the pan. "Got any wing of sand-bat or eye of Gorn in there? Can't you get this yuk from the replicator?"

"Well I could, but I'm making it for Leonard McCoy, he says the replicator stuff smells like wet diaper."

"Oh." Gaila's eyes widened. "Can I take it to him?"

* * *

**2. Holly Berry**

"Careful lass, it's spiky."

Gaila's hand is stopped in its path by an accent – and a word – she doesn't recognise so she asks; "What's a lass?"

"Eh, oh, uh..."

Men often do that, so she just waits for him to form an answer.

"It's Scottish for a girl." The man is short, but he has a kind face and he's holding some type of amber liquid sparkling in a crystal glass. There is a silence between them, and Gaila remembers humans don't like this, so she waves a hand at the garland she tried to touch.

"What's this?"

"It's holly, we put it up at Christmas, for decoration."

"Why?" Sometimes, people look at her as if she's deliberately trying to exasperate them by asking _why_ all the time, but she's not, she wants to learn. The short man doesn't look at her that way, instead he swirls his glass and takes a small sip.

"Ancient peoples used to think holly was magic, because it stayed green all winter, didn't go brown. You know?"

She thinks his question is rhetorical, but she nods anyway.

"So in the cold months, when the wind was howling and the beams were creaking and the flames in the lamps were flickering," he takes another sip, "they thought it was ghosties and and ghoulies and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night."

Gaila has not one clue what he means, but his voice is so warm that she keeps nodding.

"They hung holly for protection from spirits and demons, and we keep the tradition at Christmas."

"It's pretty."

"Aye, some folks say red and green don't go together, but I think it looks great." His eyes flick to her for a second, he takes a gulp of his drink and clears his throat. "Sorry, that was cheesy."

She laughs, "Want to dance?"

"You haven't seen me dance, but aye, OK." Then he puts his drink down, and his finger up to his lips.

From his pocket he takes a small laser multi-tool, shears off two leaves and a few berries, and tucks them into her epaulette.


	2. 3

I own nothing, I am in my sick bed too :-( Blowing my nose like Nellie the Elephant.

* * *

**3. Port wine**

"Oh, it's…unusual." She can feel the crinkle of her nose betraying her, but she can't stop it.

"It's all right, lass. It's an acquired taste." Scotty's expression is pleasant and open, but she can tell he's disappointed.

Gaila holds up the clear ochre spirit, feeling sad, as the colour is rich, and the cut facets of the glass sparkle like a Christmas bauble. Ordering a whisky at the bar sounds cool too, but she wouldn't waste her credits just to look at something pretty, she'll leave that to human men. "It tastes of smoke."

"Aye, it's got peat in it, in the water."

Gaila knows this word; she remembers something from her 'History of material culture' class. _Peat; an accumulation of decayed vegetation. _That can't be right, can it? "Dead plants? You put dead plants in whisky?"

"Ah," Scotty strokes his upper lip with a finger, "well it's more like it flavours the water, but now you say it that way, it does sound a wee bit strange." For a moment he stares into space and she's worried she has made a wrong turning, but his face lifts and he waggles an extended digit at her, jumping from his seat. "I've got the very thing. Don't move now."

Relief flows down from the top of her head to settle her nervous stomach, she has no intention of leaving. A minute or two goes by and Gaila uses the time to look about at the revellers. Some are drunk, some are sober, many are surrounded by friends while others hang lonely or shy at the edges.

"Try this." A goblet slides in front of her, similar in design to the whisky glass. "I thought you liked the way the crystal looks in the light so I got you a fancy glass." She does admire the way it shines, but she admires that he noticed even more.

"What is it?" She takes the stem of the vessel and turns it, admiring the deep velvet colour of its contents. It's the colour of jewels.

"Ruby port, you've got to sip it slow, just like whisky, it's not for throwing back now. Take a good sniff first, it smells great, not of burnt wood." He winks at her.

Gaila lifts the glass to her nose, takes a deep breath and, not for the first time, can't find the right words. "It smells…it smells of…" She flaps her free hand, as if that will bring the words faster. Triumphant, she beams at Scotty, and wiggles in her seat. "It smells like Christmas!"

He's nodding, and smiling back, "Try it, take a slow sip, roll it about in your mouth."

Obedient, she does as instructed. The first sip is sweet and warming; a blanket on a cold day, candy her mother used to make, spice, pepper, cherries, chocolate and everything good about winter.

As memories push into her head, the noise of the room recedes until she and Scotty sit in their own little snow-globe, silent and untouchable. He brings her back by clinking her glass with his own.

"Happy new year, Gaila."

As their surroundings rush back, she grabs him round the upper arm, pulls him in and gives him a thorough kissing.

.

Together, they taste like a glass of red wine by a roaring log fire.

* * *

Happy New Year, from Gaila, Scotty and Spockchick


	3. 4

A/N Unbeta'd, sorry. Also, I own nothing.

* * *

4. Tomato

The first time she met James Kirk he was eating a red, shiny apple; taking a bite then winking at her. Was this a human-apple ritual? Wise not to assume, she better ask Uhura. Gaila learned not to make assumptions from her observations. How, for example, was she supposed to know you had to cook an egg before you whacked the pointy end off with a knife?

...

Reading cookbooks on her padd was a favourite hobby. She relished Italian food with its grilled and roasted vegetables drizzled in fragrant oil. They ate their meat thin – _carpaccio_ – which was good because chewing thick steak made her gag. Garlic was divine although Uhura did, kindly, tell her not to eat it raw, since Gaila would brush her teeth with garlic if she could.

Best of all were tomatoes; sliced, interleaved with yielding mozzarella and fresh basil leaves, or stewed with sage and onions and draped over pasta. Her mouth watered as she thought of the sharp-sweet taste of plum tomatoes cut fine, sprinkled with threads of shallot, thyme leaves and syrupy balsamic vinegar. Would it be possible, she wondered, to grow them on Orion?

The room-mates went to an Italian restaurant where they ate _spaghetti pomodoro _strewn with salty pecorino and drank _Moscato di Amburgo_, which tasted a lot like ruby port. On the menu was printed: _Our vegetables are supplied by Love Apple Farms. _

'Nyota, what's a love apple? Is it like an apple dipped in love-potion?' Gaila hoped so.

Uhura explained that _love apple_ was a 16th century name. When tomatoes, new from North Africa, came to Italy, they were known as _pomo dei Mori,_ 'apples of the Moors'. It got transliterated to French as _pomme d'amour, '_love apple'.

Knowing that made Gaila love tomatoes even more.

…

At breakfast few days later, to her delight, the mess was crowded with wicker baskets heaped with tomatoes and apples, courtesy of _Love Apple Farms' _bumper harvest.

It was a conundrum indeed. She never had a tomato that wasn't cut up in salad, or cooked. It rolled around on her plate so she took it in her hand, feeling its weight and the smooth, tight skin. The colour was dark, verging on burgundy, and Gaila inhaled its scent from the stalk-end; a uric, blackcurrant tang. Others were eating oatmeal, toast or eggs, so she couldn't see any cues for the etiquette of how to eat a whole tomato.

Kirk sat down across from her, apple in hand.

Crunch; wink.

Well, Uhura did say a tomato was a type of apple, so Gaila followed suit and took a big bite of her ample fruit.

A squirt of ripe juice jumped the table and hit Jim Kirk right in the eye, while globs of jelly and seeds formed several sticky-bombs that fired over the divide and splattered the front of his uniform. In her peripheral vision, Gaila saw a cluster of gloop clinging to her curls.

Beside her on the bench Uhura trembled, bent over.

Ignoring the commotion opposite, the cursing, and the apple now rolling on the tabletop, Gaila said to her friend; "Sorry, did I get you too?"

Uhura shook her head in the negative, and her eyes squeezed shut while she jammed a hand against her open mouth. After some seconds she lowered the hand in defeat.

Out flew a flurry of musical laughter.

…

A/N Love Apple Farms are real, situated in San Francisco. As you may guess, I like my food and the thought of 23rd century food all being replicated is really depressing. Next time I will pick a non-food prompt from my list. Only 46 to go!


	4. 5

**5. Northern Cardinal**

Every sunny day brings Gaila outside with her lunch. As well as soaking up much-needed UV rays, she likes to people watch, to help in everyday interaction.

.

Terrans' planet-centricity often astounded her. 'You _know_,' said a class companion, 'that short actor who does action holos, the one married to...'

But Gaila stopped listening, she didn't know, and why should she?

.

So here she sits, reading tedious tabloids on her padd, gawking at vacant starlets, scandal and sex, hoping it might help her fit in.

In a tree opposite sits a small bird with vivid red feathers and a black robber's mask. The bird's head jerks as it sings, looking around in what she imagines to be a desperate manner. Is it looking for its mate? The repetitive, piercing song is an alarm-call and several times it puffs out its lower half in a flounce, hopping from one leg to another. At the end of a minute, the notes become the low, rapid tones of a flitter being unlocked with an electronic key, and she thinks the bird might be mimicking sounds it hears on campus.

It's such a unique, vibrant puff of colour, this little performer, and she wants to know how far it's migrated, so she calls 'excuse me' to a passing cadet.

'That bird, has it flown a long way to get here?'

'Nah, they live here all year.' The boy speeds past in a hurry.

Gaila hugs her knees up to her chest, balancing her feet on the edge of her bench.

Not even the birds are strangers.

.


	5. 6

**6. Rust**

Inside the California Academy of Sciences it's cool, at odds with the external heat. Gaila read the building's engineers designed the climate control using natural convection. She walks the halls with a tiny holo-projector resting beside one eye, its sound-receiver tucked inside her ear.

Nowhere on Orion would going to a museum involve such strange, silent theatre. Visitors point to an exhibit, and floating information panels appear. A voice in their chosen language might offer a commentary, inaudible to those around them. Everyone is so polite, not wishing to disturb another's learning. You could study a lot here, or you could travel through the rooms inventing your own histories.

She admires the edged weapons section, Orions do enjoy a good blade. After appreciating the sweeping curve of a lirpa, and the barbed edges of a bat'leth she stops, curious, in front of a lumpy rectangular nugget of rock. For thousands of years, the inhabitants of this universe clouted one another with rocks, what's so special about this one? The mass looks like iron ore, its rough exterior encrusted with rust. She points a forefinger, and a terse description hovers at the glass case.

_Decorated La Tene style Iron Age dagger-pommel._

_France, 200BCE_

There must be a malfunction, a bug in their program, so she glances left and right, looking for something resembling a knife-butt. A soothing female voice drifts into her earpiece.

_You might think you are looking at the wrong exhibit, so here's a short de-construction._

A facsimile of the nugget spins at eye-level and a crack, leaching narrow shafts of light, splits the surface from top to bottom. From it hatches a metal handle, embellished with raised circles containing radial curves. Stylised wave crests run around the base of the piece, and the top is crowned with a proud, stout ram's-horn shaped ring.

_This level of detail in iron is rare, and the decoration is fragile. The shell you see here is a thick layer of rust, formed when the object was buried in damp ground. We have decided not to free the pommel from its oxidised coating, as that may damage it. The rust seals out oxygen, so the surface cannot deteriorate further. You can see from this scan how an unpromising exterior might hide artistry within._

Gaila knows arms; in her mind's eye she sees the blade grow and calculates how short and heavy it will be to balance the pommel. For a while, she gazes on what once was ugly. Now, because she knows its secret, it looks different.

Inside, it's beautiful.


	6. 7 and 8 A Valentine

**7. Rose**

"Is it food? It looks yummy."

Scotty's eyes close for a second while he repeats to himself that Gaila is not from Earth, and it was likely she wouldn't understand a romantic gesture.

"No lass, it's a flower, a rose."

"I know its a flower silly, but Uhura puts them in salad. Natus – natstut – nasturtiums!"

"Flowers in salad? Ye dinnae get that where I'm from. Uhura must be posh."

"So you can't eat it?"

"Um, no. Besides, it's thorny. Look at the stem, see? Come to think of it, I wonder why they didnae engineer them oot."

A red-nailed fingertip caresses a barb on the slender stalk, and Gaila smiles an interior, Mona Lisa smile. "But that's why it's beautiful."

.

Four days later, Scotty answers his door to Gaila.

"I got something for you." She hands a flat box over, balanced on her two palms as though it was a silver salver and, with authority, says, "Turkish delight." Eye-balling the label on the container, she nods towards it.

"Made of roses."

* * *

**8. Corundum**

Something was wrong with the flitter component in her hand, it felt wrong. She wished Scotty was a teacher, he would never mock someone for saying the inanimate 'felt wrong'. One of her professors looked at her like she came off the last cargo freighter as a stowaway. Well, _chuulak_ him. Anyway, Scotty being hidden away in the depths of R&D was all together better. That's where Starfleet hid all the good toys.

At night in the 'shop', it was quiet. During evening sessions the repair pits were noisy, music blaring out and engineering cadets treating it like a club. That's when she did simple, obvious jobs, repairs that didn't need too much diagnosis or thought.

It was too small to look at with the naked eye, so she mounted the engine-part on a thin graphite rod inserted into a turntable, ready for the scanner. The laserscans were old-fashioned but cheap, and made an accurate image. Once she mapped the part, she could blow the copy up and look for flaws.

But for her steps, occasional breath, and the whirr of motors as she aligned her equipment, all was still. A soft buzz swelled in the hard-surfaced room as the laser pulsed up, but instead of quietening to a hum there was a loud crack, and Gaila started, then sighed and fired a quick query off to the computer. So much for a quiet night in the lab. Before she could start putting things away, her communicator rang 'Scotland the Brave' so she flipped it open and greeted the caller. 'Hey Scotty.'

'Howzit going?'

'Crystal snapped in my laser, none left in stores. I can't repair the scanner anyway, not allowed after the last time.'

'I'm finishing up here, I'll get you one from R&D, what size was it?'

.

In the end, Scotty didn't touch the laser, he let Gaila fix it, assisting as her OR nurse. Head down in the workings, without looking round, she slapped the shattered slivers of the laser's ruptured crimson heart into his hand.

'It must've had a flaw,' he said, 'to fail like that.'

Gaila straightened, her work complete. 'It did its duty.' For no reason she could think of, her voice was harsh. 'Can I see those pieces?'

'Aye, sure.' He held out the shards for her inspection.

'If I use these crystals, if a rich man offers them for me to appraise, to trade, they are _corundum chromium._ If the same man offers them to some society dimwit, to wear round her scraggy neck, they're _rubies_.'

Starfleet's brightest engineering star lowered his small burden onto the workbench behind him, and took the Orion's hands in his. 'What do you think's better, Gaila?'

'This is, this is better.'

* * *

Chuulak - a type of Orion public execution by slow torture to deter others (thanks Memory Beta)

Happy Valentines from Scotty and Gaila.


	7. 10 Sailor's delight

**10. Sailor's delight**

Up in the hills it's getting chilly, and Gaila pulls a light fleece about her shoulders. Behind her, in a basket, sits a bottle of pink _prosecco _with two centimetres left in the bottom_, _an oily carton that once held tomato and basil salad, and one solitary strawberry dipped in chocolate, because she's saving that for last.

Beside her, Scotty sits up from lying on their tartan blanket with his hands under his head. 'Yer cold lass, get over here.'

Over she scoots, leans back into his chest, and they sit, observing a glowing yellow-dwarf star light the sky's blue touchpaper, until earth's atmosphere is ablaze.

With his cheek resting on her head, the Scotsman murmurs, 'Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning.'

'What's that mean?'

'Och, dunno really, something to do with the storm moving away from you if it's red like this at night. I didnae take any meteorology classes.'

In the band of his arms, she twists to face him. 'Do you wish you were up there?'

'Yes'

'We will be.' Gaila turns again to face the sunset, and pulls Scotty tighter.

.

* * *

A/N: School is kicking my butt for the next 7 weeks, things are slow until 2nd week of May, sorry.


	8. 11 Titian

**11. Titian**

Seaweed strands of copper fall in a veil over the girl's soft shoulder, just above the swell of a small, high breast. Her sheer gown – nightclothes or underclothes, Gaila can't tell – has slipped, or been pulled down, to reveal flesh, but her expression is not one of seduction. There's a distance between her and the viewer as she appears lost in private thought. No wonder thinks Gaila, her wrist probably aches from holding that little bunch of flowers for hours; a small posy of white roses with one tiny primrose touching the tip of her middle finger. Since she met Sulu, she's getting better at plants. He likes a blade too.

But it was the girl's hair that drew her to the painting, so like her own; pinned in scalloped waves above her ears, the rest hanging in ripples. There's a quiet rustle as her companion bends towards the information board by the painting, and Gaila can't help looking at her fencing-partner's shapely form.

'Well, what do you know?' says Sulu. 'When she was painted, people thought she was a prostitute.' He straightens and takes a step back, to look at the canvas.

'But she's actually a Goddess.'

.

Before she moves on to the next artwork, Gaila blows the girl a kiss.

.

* * *

A/N: The painting is Flora, by Titian. She is in the Uffizi, in Florence.


	9. 12 Poppy

Kind thanks on this one to my pals SpockLikesCats and SpockSide. Meant to post on Memorial Day but life got in the way.

* * *

**12. Poppy**

On Orion, honour is defended with a blade. Across the planet wars are waged; tiny, tight knots of people skirmish for pathetic little reasons and Gaila is glad to be away. Family feuds last for generations, until the original spark that lit the straw of animosity is forgotten. But still they quarrel, but still they argue, but still they are exhausted.

Orions loathe a quiet existence. If drama is not there, it must be manufactured. What is life without adrenaline? Gaila's answer would be _peaceful_, and that answer pushed her into Starfleet. No more the comm-calls to her mother who sharpened her blade and tongue while picking at every remark in order to find an opportunity to use both. No doubt, Gaila loves a blade, but for the craft, the metalwork, the edge and the elegance. Nobody crafts things any more, but on Orion they do, and they are well-forged.

A planet of warriors, of course, is impossible. Someone has to collect body parts and ferry the injured.

Someone has to dig the graves.

Always there's been that someone, in Gaila's case an uncle so traumatised he never spoke of it again. A person on the periphery of written history, but in reality at its centre, armed only with a basic med kit, and a shovel. A boy of nineteen turned to a man in the space of one day. Turned to a man who loved his fellow man so much he made it his life's work to understand them; always question, always love, always care.

But he's dust now. With arms folded in superiority her mother relayed his death, for to be a thinker was to be a wastrel and a coward. No matter he was her own brother, he shamed the family.

* * *

There's a flitter in the shop; Gaila just fixed it. On the pretext of a test drive she takes it to Treasure Island, a fitting place to remember a man who was born, and died, at the salt-lick of the sea. She's read Earth's history, their warring, and knows this human ritual is correct.

At the ocean's swell she takes a bloom from a shining, hard stasis tube and throws it into the offshore wind. For a moment the flower rides blowsy and bright on a white, foaming crest.

Gaila stands at attention, head forward, until the poppy's papery petals are dragged down.

* * *

.

Here dead we lie because we did not choose,  
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.

Life, to be sure is nothing much to lose,  
But young men think it is,  
And we were young.

Alfred Edward Housman


End file.
